mmander, and his dam, Whisper, are as
nice, normal, easy-tempered dogs as you could find anywhere, and their
litters take after 'em--'cept this youngster, who sulks all day long
off in some dark hole by himself and shakes if we speak to him. Nobody
has mishandled the little chap so far's I've ever seen or heard, but
the least thing--a shout or a rattle of tools or any fool noise--throws
him into such a funk that all the rest of the puppies are getting
panicky and the whole caboodle is running wild. There's no two ways
about it. I've got to clear that born ninny out. I sold him a month ago
to a lady for fifty dollars, but she brought him back in a week and
said he was about as cheerful company as a tombstone. Now see here! You
can have him for twenty, or for nothing, just as you feel after you've
given him a try."

"But I don't want him. I shouldn't want him if he were the best dog in
the country."

"Then I reckon I'll have to shoot him. I could give him away, but he's
such a wretched, shivery little rascal that most any sort of folks
would be too rough for him. 'Twould be kinder to put him out of the
world and done with it. He's had seven months of it now and pretty well
made up his mind that he don't like it. I did think maybe you might be
willing to give him a chance."

I was surprised to hear my own voice saying into the telephone: "I'll
try him for a few days, if you care to bring him over."

Yet I dreaded his coming. The friend who gave us Sigurd had offered us
the past winter a very prince of puppies, the daintiest, most spirited,
most winsome little collie that a free affection could ask, but
Joy-of-Life and I could not make him ours. We could regard him only as
a visitor in Sigurd's haunts, and the Lady of Cedar Hill, resenting the
name of Guest which we had given him, re-named him Eric and took him to
her own home. Here she soon won the utter devotion of his dog-heart,
which, though now no longer beating, through that ardent and faithful
love "tastes of immortality."

I was in the veranda off the study, trying to busy myself with my old
toys of books and pen and paper, when the young collie was led in by a
small girl, the only person at the kennels whose call he obeyed or
whose companionship he welcomed. Deposited beside my chair, he promptly
retreated to the utmost distance the narrow limits of his prison-house
allowed, panting and quaking.

"Be good, Blazey," the child admonished him, stroking his head